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DAKOTA WINTER COUNTS AS A SOURCE OF PLAINS HISTORY
By James H. Howard
INTRODUCTION
The existence among the Dakota Indians of calendars, in the form of charts giving a picture of a single outstanding event for each year, was first made public by Garrick Mallery in 1877 in a paper entitled "A Calendar of the Dakota Nation" (Mallery, 1877). These records, originally drawn on hides, later on pieces of cloth, are called waniyetu wowapi or "winter records" by the Dakota. Sometimes the variant terms waniyetu iyawa and hekta yawapi (Mallery 1886, p. 128) are used, which mean "winter count" and "counting back" respectively.
The term waniyetu, "winter," is employed in two ways by the Dakota. The first, like the English word "winter," refers to the cold season of the year. In the other sense it refers to the year as a whole, the Dakota having no other word for this purpose. Thus, a person is spoken of as being so many "winters" old instead of being so many years of age. It is not surprising, then, to find that many of the events in a Dakota "winter" count actually took place during the spring, summer, and fall.
Subsequent to his first publication, mentioned above, Mallery published two further studies of Dakota winter counts (1886, pp. 89-127; 1893, pp. 266-328). These studies are monumental, and have become classics in the field. Curtis, in his "North American Indian" (1908, pp. 159-328) gives an Oglala count and compares it with the material given by Mallery. Vestal gives White Bull's count in his "Warpath" (1934 a, pp. 259-273) and a Hunkpapa count in "New Sources of Indian History 1850-91" (1934 b, pp. 348-351). Cohen (1942) in "Indians at Work" gives Big Missouri's count.1
In this paper I wish to supplement these earlier works with nine hitherto little-known winter counts from the Dakota of the Standing Rock Reservation, N. Dak. and S. Dak." Six of these are in the
1 Cohen, 1939, pp. 16-20. Swift Bear's count, presented by Cohen In the January (pp. 18-21), February (pp. 30-31), and March (pp. 29-30), 1942, issues of the same magazine came to my attention too late for inclusion as comparative material in this paper. However, none of the data presented called for changes in the interpretations of the events in the counts presented here.
339

DAKOTA WINTER COUNTS AS A SOURCE OF PLAINS HISTORY
By James H. Howard
INTRODUCTION
The existence among the Dakota Indians of calendars, in the form of charts giving a picture of a single outstanding event for each year, was first made public by Garrick Mallery in 1877 in a paper entitled "A Calendar of the Dakota Nation" (Mallery, 1877). These records, originally drawn on hides, later on pieces of cloth, are called waniyetu wowapi or "winter records" by the Dakota. Sometimes the variant terms waniyetu iyawa and hekta yawapi (Mallery 1886, p. 128) are used, which mean "winter count" and "counting back" respectively.
The term waniyetu, "winter" is employed in two ways by the Dakota. The first, like the English word "winter" refers to the cold season of the year. In the other sense it refers to the year as a whole, the Dakota having no other word for this purpose. Thus, a person is spoken of as being so many "winters" old instead of being so many years of age. It is not surprising, then, to find that many of the events in a Dakota "winter" count actually took place during the spring, summer, and fall.
Subsequent to his first publication, mentioned above, Mallery published two further studies of Dakota winter counts (1886, pp. 89-127; 1893, pp. 266-328). These studies are monumental, and have become classics in the field. Curtis, in his "North American Indian" (1908, pp. 159-328) gives an Oglala count and compares it with the material given by Mallery. Vestal gives White Bull's count in his "Warpath" (1934 a, pp. 259-273) and a Hunkpapa count in "New Sources of Indian History 1850-91" (1934 b, pp. 348-351). Cohen (1942) in "Indians at Work" gives Big Missouri's count.1
In this paper I wish to supplement these earlier works with nine hitherto little-known winter counts from the Dakota of the Standing Rock Reservation, N. Dak. and S. Dak." Six of these are in the
1 Cohen, 1939, pp. 16-20. Swift Bear's count, presented by Cohen In the January (pp. 18-21), February (pp. 30-31), and March (pp. 29-30), 1942, issues of the same magazine came to my attention too late for inclusion as comparative material in this paper. However, none of the data presented called for changes in the interpretations of the events in the counts presented here.
339